Dear Chibi,

Long weekend! yay! Though it doesn’t really mean much to a casual/part-timer anyway :p

On Saturday, Jacky and I made another trip to Parra to get a birthday present we thought would be much appropriate getting closer to her actual bday party than the day we had originally intended to get it. So we did. It was a lot of walking but well worth it and very exciting, teeheee.

Sunday night was spent over at Somps’s place to celebrate her 21st bday. It was a very hot evening and there were a lot of people, mainly her relatives and family friends. woah.. 30 families. I didn’t know it was possible! But of course there’s us, her Uni friends, her high school friends and friends of her friends =) It was a pretty enjoyable evening and it has been over 3 weeks since we’ve all got together for some good company. go COFA.

The following day we went to Etta’s place over in Castle Hill, which Emily, Ray, Marcus and her high school friends also went to. It was a wrap-up party for them (Etta, Flora, Ray, Emily) finishing their short film ‘Suspend’ which they submitted to Tropfest. With plenty of junk food, an air conditioner and yaoi goodness (Raycus ;p) we had a pretty good time… but of course we can’t leave out Pictionary! Good game guys =) It was engaging (all-play every round =p)

After that Jacky and I went to my Grandparent’s place for dinner to celebrate my Grandma’s 77th birthday. My great granny (now 106) didn’t recognise me o__o She said “you’re not one of the twins, right?” After assuring her I was, she said “The older one?”.. oh wells. XD She thought Dessi (my cousin) was Mark. They don’t look alike at all.

When my family arrived, Jacky, Mark, Kaz and I played mahjong in a room while waiting for the other guests to come. We didn’t get too much time to play, but if we did I’m sure I would have won some back! teehee.. yes, I kinda got owned by Kaz that night XD.

For dinner, the “kids” got their own table. Kids? I’m the youngest out of the relos anyway so “kids” consisted of us 4 and Dessi (who was turning 24)..LOL. That was funny. We sat on a table for about 8 people, and when we finished eating the food looked untouched (except for the fish which I ruined, lol) But we were done.

The night turned out more exciting than usual.. but most of us had work the following day so we couldn’t stay too late.

Dear Chibi,

Now I become blind, do I?

Sometimes I gotta give credit to whoever comes up with these situations for me to experience. It is pretty scary though… the dream constantly changed perspective from first person (being what I see) to third person. Vision switched from colour- to grey in split seconds- so much that I felt dizzy and wanted to give up trying to see. In no time, I couldn’t see a thing. I felt hopeless, but I remained as  calm as I could. Then.. switching to third person, I see myself wandering around in my high school… but it’s hard to tell I was actually blind.. just a bit emotionless and in deep thought. Forgetting the fact I went to a girl’s school.. . my Uni friends were there as students. Mainly as spectators, cause they didn’t play much of a role in the dream. Not much talking took place. It was one of those..more quiet dreams.. yet noisy. Contradicting, isn’t it? I don’t know how to describe it.

This dream brings up questions I constantly ask myself- those ‘what ifs’.  When I cross a road.. I think ‘What if I die this very moment? What if some crazy drink driver pops out of the corner?” When I’m driving.. ‘What if I ran over someone this very moment? Is my life over? What would I do?’ I’m walking alone… ‘If I die any moment..for any reason.. is that the end of my story?’ ‘This won’t happen to me, right?’

It’s probably sounding like I’m scared of life and death. It’s not really that.. It just means that if I die at any point of time.. I hope that I won’t have any regrets.

Just being cautious, really. Things happen that’s not in our control, but being careful could lower that probability.

Dear Chibi,
Crocodiles walking around in my house.. this isn’t the first time I had this nightmare. What a terrifying scene. There was a large bathtub in the kitchen where they were swimming in…Why did I dream about this?
I remember at work yesterday I was looking at crocodile skin.. so that’s probably where that came from. *shivers*

Just as I was recapping moments of the nightmare while walking to the station this morning, a black cat just suddenly popped out of no-where! Yes, I jumped.

And then finally, as I approached my work office I saw a cockroach on the ground on the urge of dying, so it was spinning around being spastic O__O.. crocodiles are still by far the most scary of the day though.

Things have been going pretty well for me lately (despite what I mentioned above). Nothing seems out of control at this point, and I guess I’m getting use to this new schedule of mine. I’m still able to balance my life with enough fun to match the work. It keeps me sane =) I’m looking forward to February- firstly there’s Chinese New Year and then my HK and Japan trip =D I will be going for about 2 weeks again, 8 days in HK and 5 days in Tokyo. Have I made it a yearly thing? Not sure.. but I do know I would like to go overseas once every year anyway- it’s an exciting experience. Would I like to live there permanently? Not..really. I probably wouldn’t ever want to- I got homesick just being in Queensland for 5 days and that’s still in Australia, lol! Oh, I was young back then, teehee.

Now I’m out of Uni, in the workforce- yet I don’t consider myself old enough to take care of myself- at least to live on my own. Will I ever learn to cook? Will I want to? Will I ever get over insects and bugs? Will I get my own house keys? Do I want them? Probably not. Accepting responsibilities is part of growing up, so I’m avoiding it whenever possible. I’ll be 21 in May (on 21st May XD), but I’m still just a child at heart.

I know that one day I’ll be accepting everything and it’ll come to me naturally. When the time is right.

Dear Chibi,
Ah.. I came across a beauty.
http://www.design-police.org

I’m quite picky with these things too :3 What better way to express yourself in the form of pretty stickers? XD

Dear Chibi,

Yesterday I decided to join Jacky and Burpy in one of their jamming sessions (as a spectator, of course XD) and it turned out pretty enjoyable. Every time I see people play an instrument I’m left fascinated how coordinated they are. I lack coordination overall, heck I can’t even touch type- but still it’s fun to dream sometimes being able to play one =) I would like to be able to play it, but don’t think I’m prepared to give up things to do it. Jacky attempted to teach me play a bit with the guitar, but I was too concerned about my fingers, which were hurting just pressing against it.

I often wonder.. is it possible, for someone-anyone to suddenly be able to do something they had no previous knowledge of or talent? Can people really branch into an unknown area and be good at it? Talent seems to play a major factor, though we often say hard work can also get you anywhere. Talent seems to run in families too. Is one’s life determined the moment they were born or what? Can people be everything and anything? Is there an age where you’re something and that’s what you are? Surely people change career paths and directions in their life, but how easy/difficult is that to do? There’s so many questions I’m often wondering and although most probably have clichéd answers- it’s hard to accept until I’ve experienced it myself. Wow, I have so much confidence in myself, don’t I?

Dear Chibi,

Last night it was a great pleasure to be invited to Althea’s Agharti ‘Thank You’ Party- a party for those who worked on her honours animation project or encouraged her along the way. It’s kinda funny, since it should be me, thanking her since she gave more than what I probably gave her. She’s awesome and I appreciate it nevertheless =D Anyway..her house is mad, lol.. Jacky and I were simply amazed by how resourceful she is! She had a stack of illustration and artbooks from famous 2D animations, her own animation studio (o.o) and stacks of pens and markers. She has a whole library of them- it shows how passionate she is about animation.

Oh, and sitting next to me while we were looking at the artworks from Howls Moving Castle, was Vivienne To! She did the crazy backgrounds for The Poisoned Rain of Agharti as well as Fiona Darwin. We had a chance to look through folders of Althea’s older works including fanart, fanfics arts etc, and we saw stuff like Dragon Ball and thought ‘woah!’ She really draws a lot.

Since Al is part of the SMASH committee, she happens to be in possession of the 2008 SMASH Traveling Artist Book- where a book is passed around from artist to artist to make their contribution inside whether it’s a doodle, or full-on completed and coloured work. The book is auctioned at SMASH later in the year.

I was excited (and quite happy) to find out that Vivienne also started out drawing characters from SAILOR MOON =D =D =D And yes, you could probably guess I asked Vivienne to draw Sailor Moon inside… and she did!

Boy is she good. I’m so happy I was able to see her draw it. I was quite surprised to find out that she only started drawing backgrounds not-so-long ago, and mostly did fanarts before that.

And..let’s take a sneak peak inside the book:

Art work by..anonymous. Ignore the unmatching colours, teehee. It’s my phone.

Currently a work-in-progress. Here’s the talented artist:

The bear.

Our two cents. Which… you can’t really see properly.

And of course, the party wouldn’t be a party without the FOOD. The food was great… I kinda stuffed myself with it and left no space for dessert, lol.

It was a great evening, others I met include William, Ray, Lesley, Kaitlyn and Keith- the sound guy ^_^ Apart from the arty stuff, we played some Wii- tennis, bowling and Guitar Heros. Guitar heroes seems most popular (was also most popular at Helen’s place last time)- and obviously Jacky loved the game, haha. He’s pretty good. Bowling was funnily strange.. the three strikes I made were complete accidents when I dropped the ball with NO POWER. noo…ball..come back!! Oh wait..strike. yay.

To conclude the night, we had an unexpected guest greet us!

Mr Cocroach.

*runs*

It made us all jump from the couches, which left the scene looking like this:

lol. Go Al and her ultimate spraying weapon XD

Dear Chibi,

I’ve finally taken down the Xmas tree banner and created a new one =D Sadly, I’m not un-lazy enough to take down my real Christmas tree, lol. That tends to happen every year ^^;

As you probably noticed, the “category” and “monthly” archives have all been moved from the side bar to it’s own nifty page (Thanks Hoshichan for giving me a hand =D) Soo.. now I don’t have to worry about the list overflowing and making my blog look overly crowded. You may have also noticed that these days there’s only 5 entries on a page, instead of 10. The reason for this is that now I tend to post more pictures and I wanted to avoid a lot of scrolling. I’ll revert back to 10 pages when I post less pictures.

Hope you like the new-ish look. I know I do XD

Song Plug: Janice Vidal 衛蘭- Talent 5.81mb (Cantopop)

Dear Chibi,

And… today marks the start of another year of teaching at Mono classes.

I can’t believe this is my fourth year teaching here! It’s possibly my last, so I might as well enjoy it like every other year, teehee. It feels like the same procedures all over again, but what’s different are the students. I was a little nervous today preparing for class- a new little connection was going to be made. Thinking back, the classes have gotten better and better each year- better as in- more enjoyable… I wonder if this year would be better than the last? =) It’s probably too early to tell from the first lesson, but it’s good they have a sense of humor too, lol. I like making them laugh.

Each year the student-teacher age gap gets wider and wider, making me feel extremely old, lol.. When I started there in 2005, I was older than the students about 1-2 years.. now the gap is like.. 5 years. Yes, I am knowledgeable and wise. XD At the end of the lesson, as I headed out to my car, I saw my last yr’s class coming out from the room next door (which Kerry took)- it took me one look at them to remember why I enjoyed them so much =) They’re happy, innocent and young, lol. Wish them all the best.

Speaking of teaching.. sometimes I randomly get called in to teach at SAMSUNG college where Kaz works part-time. I tend to get the yr 3s. Horrible yr 3s. lol. A few weeks back when I took a lesson, I noticed this stuck on the wall in the classroom:

Hilarious. lol The Wall bites. ouch.

And finally, the girl I’ve been private tutoring for 2 years. It is possible that the bond is going to end between us. I’ve decided to pass her onto Kaz, seeing as she doesn’t get any income, and I’m working more now. I do feel a little sad- seeing as I’ve taught her every weekend for 24 months, but everything has to end at some point. She hasn’t always been a wonderful obedient kid, but she kinda grows on you overtime. =) Got use to it, hehe.

Now I’m currently working part-time/casual 4 days a week doing graphic/web/flash stuff.